Thanks to everyone who entered February's Assignment - 36 in all, not counting myself - so now it's time to vote for your favourite! (as before I'm disqualified as the Editor!).

Polls close at midnight on 21st March 2008, and the winner will choose the theme for April's Assignment. So good luck and get voting!

Gordon

Hello everyone, welcome to February's Assignment!

The theme for this month is suggested by Drazen Gal, who won the December competition. In his own words:

"My idea for February is that U take picture of your living place. Try with just one photograph describe your town in a best way U can."

A new guideline from now on is that the photo you submit should be taken during the month of the actual assignment - ie during February 2008. You're also only allowed to submit one image, and you can't change you mind once it's posted!

As always, please exercise good judgement on what is suitable for the forum.

Please include a sentence or two with your photo describing what you were trying to achieve and if there were any particular challenges in doing so.

We're all enthusiasts here, so it's also great to see what equipment you used and the settings too. So please also include the following:

Submissions will close at midnight GMT on 29 February 2008. The final poll will follow.

Please remember this thread is for submissions only and that posted images should be around 500 pixels on their longest dimension. If you'd like to comment on any of the submissions or ask any questions, please do so in the February 2008 comments thread!

Hi all.
I've been visiting this website from time to time but only registered recently. Thought I would give this month's 'On Assignment' a go.

This is the best view that I know of the village where I live in Northern Ireland. I decided to take a photo from here because a village is a relatively small community and I wanted that to be apparent from the picture. And what I have got here is a small built up area in the middle of a lot of countryside.

Scenery, beautiful architecture, shops, entertainment and an honourable history. Bit of a tall order for one photograph but here's my entry, taken today about five minutes walk from home. The biggest challenge is trying to produce a thumbnail with any punch at all, as so much of the detail in the shot is lost during downsizing. The other significant difficulty was trying to avoid too much orange protective netting in the shot, as the village green undergoes extensive repairs at this time of year in preparation for the tourist season.

dutch windmill and our own "pizza" tower. it used to stand straight 80 years ago. But when they took away the water to win land on the other side of the dijk the pressure of the water wasn't there anymore so the land slided away a little, taking the tower and everything else with it.

Taken from a flat. This is my school's renovation site. It is in the heart of the Tampines(Tahm-Pee-Nees) estate, and the town centre can be seen to the background, in the midst of the residences. (If you look closely enough you can even find students playing basketball )

Before a photojournalism assignment, I had a brief visit to my photography honing ground - the British Museum. I come here very often to practice my photography, so it's almost a second home. The natural lighting was good so I couldn't resist capturing the shadows of the geometric roof across the court.

Camera Model: D200
Lens and focal length: Handheld at 10mm, Sigma 10-20 + ND4 grad
Aperture: f14
Shutter Speed: 1/20
Sensitivity: ISO200
Post processing: Played with curves, upped saturation, and used a touch of diffuse glow to soften the scene. Cloned out 2 heads that were caught on the edge of the frame.

Hi everyone,
Here’s my post, King Fahd's Fountain, donated to the city by King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz rises some 853 feet (260 meters) from the sea off Jeddah. This jet of water is the highest of its type in the world and is an unforgettable sight, especially when illuminated at night.
I tried my best getting the best out of my (Nikon e3700) & also did some post editing (increased color temp. + some brightness adjustment)

This is Seattle's Public Market, aka Pike Street Market. It's quite a tourist attraction, but at the same time brings in many locals for fresh seafood and produce. Here's an interesting little bit of info for you: if you go straight down this street and turn right, you'll find the first Starbucks too.

Hi everyone, New guy here! Been browsing through both Camera Labs and DSLR tips for quite a while now, thought I'd sign up and join like minded people! The video guides proved especially useful to boost the learning curve, many thanks Gordon. I got a D40 for Christmas and haven't put it down since...

This is a view from a field at the top of the village - I live in the middle of nowhere! It was a beautiful clear night so I thought I'd go for a wander and took the camera and tripod with me. looking across the field icould see the red glow and the reflections in the puddles and just thought it looked interesting. Taken about an hour ago (10pm, 12/2/08 )

I live in Queenstown, New Zealand. It's the self-titled adventure capital of NZ and where Bungy jumping was invented, but it's also simply a beautiful place. The surrounding scenery has made it into several movies, most notably Lord of the Rings, and X-Men fans will be interested to hear they're currently filming Wolverine, with Hugh Jackman spotted around town!

Queenstown's most famous view is from the Skyline Gondola halfway up Bob's Peak, but as we use that as the main image in our results pages, I didn't want to show you it again here! So I've gone higher and climbed Ben Lomond, at an elevation of 1750m and pointed a camera in roughly the same direction.

So if you follow the lower ridge down to the treeline, you'll reach the top of the Skyline Gondola, and just above and to the left of that the conurbation you see is Queenstown. The peninsula is the golf course and the buildings to its left is the suburb Kelvyn Heights. The flat land to the left side of the lake is the airport.

I chose this photo becuase it still has the iconic Remarkables Mountain Range in the background, but shows the surroundings of Queenstown as a place for outdoor activities!

Hi folks. I was determined to take part in my first comp this month but when I saw the topic I was up against it. I don't live in a town (this has always been a bonus previously). Since I can't really show you my town then the next best thing would be my companions in life. Not keen on showing faces on the internet - and people pictures aren't my thing anyway - and so this shot leapt out. This is my wife and kids at the beach yesterday. We do beaches good here.

I know it doesn't precisely fit the brief but Gordon's already stretched the "Hometown" concept and this is nothing if not a democracy.

Well here goes.... be gentle with me as this is my first entry in "On Assignment".... it is an HDR image of a very prominent feature in the place where I live, It is the new Grandstand at Ascot racecourse and was shot today with the sun setting behind the building.